


One More Night

by angel_in_a_big_blue_box



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s03e23 Deus Ex Machina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23728534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_a_big_blue_box/pseuds/angel_in_a_big_blue_box
Summary: This is supposed to be a missing scene between the end of S3 and the start of S4 because I always feel like something's missing there.First half of the fic is mostly the very end of Deus Ex Machina with some of my own exposition thrown inAfter the break, it's all my crappy writing.
Relationships: Harold Finch/John Reese
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	One More Night

“That’s good enough for now. Have Shaw take a look at it, when she gets back. First time’s the worst, huh?”

Finch leaned back in his chair and looked up at John, who smiled wanly before draping Harold’s coat over his shoulder, tucking it around him like a sort of security blanket. 

“Why would you ever choose a career where this was an occupational hazard?”

John looked up, and blinked, “Well, I tried to quit,” he murmured as he moved to stand further off to Harold’s side, more in his line of sight, “but some jackass told me, I needed a purpose.” 

Harold spun in his chair to glare and Reese flashed him a small smile, one that said volumes more than his words did. A smile that said he wouldn’t have traded any of this for the retirement he originally planned. One that said he knew he had been granted an incredible gift, not just the ability to save people’s lives and prevent small disasters, but also something which only one other person in existence had ever held claim to, Harold’s heart. 

The phone rang, breaking the moment, and both men turned to the call at hand. 

“Get out of the library, now.” 

Despite speaking at a normal volume, Root seemed to be screaming into the tension in the room. 

“It isn’t safe there anymore, Harold.”

“Miss Groves? Are you and Miss Shaw – “

“Card catalog by the window, top drawer on the right.” 

John moved to the catalog, rooting around inside for a moment before drawing out two envelopes.

“Hurry.” She sounded desperate.

“What’s going on?”

“Your new identities are inside. Destroy everything else.” 

Harold barely glanced at the materials that John had dumped before him, staring desolately at the screens in front of him.

“I take it your plan to stop Samaritan was unsuccessful.”

“Any chance we had of stopping it ended when we didn’t kill the Congressman.”

Harold could hear the accusation in her voice and flinched, even though he knew he had made the right choice. 

“This was never about winning. It’s just about surviving.” 

The two men looked at each other and Harold could feel an icy grip take hold of him, even as he started tucking away all of the files and shutting down the computers that once helped him and John find and rescue all of the so-called irrelevants. John dug his go-bag out of the bookcase behind Harold and together, the two men and Bear marched out of the library, slamming the security gate behind him. The seemingly inconspicuous men and their dog crossed the street, walking closely together. After they had gone a little ways down the street, they broke off, Harold taking Bear and going left, with John taking the go-bag and heading right. 

***********************************************************************************************************************************************

They met later that night in the old safehouse apartment, the only place The Machine had somehow managed to keep away from the eyes and files of Samaritan, for now anyways. John threw his bag on the floor and rushed to Harold, drawing him in for a slow kiss, placing his hands, gently, so gently it nearly brought tears to Harold’s eyes, on either side of his face. Harold could feel those steady hands shaking slightly, as if John hadn’t believed up until this moment that Harold was real, having lost him again only moments after getting him back. After a few seconds, John took a step back, his hands falling uselessly to his sides, refusing to look Harold in the eye.

“I’m sorry, I just – “

Harold took a step closer, wincing slightly when it jostled his shot arm.

“Don’t. It’s quite alright, John. I feel the same. I must admit that despite the fact that I chose to leave rather than participate in the scheme that The Machine had tried to draw us into, I did not do so without much apprehension. It felt wrong to leave you and Miss Shaw behind…particularly you.”

Harold reached a hand up, but it was the wrong one and he winced again, letting his arm fall uselessly to his side. John was on him immediately. 

“Let me get that patched up better since we can’t…Shaw can’t…”

John closed his eyes and gritted his teeth a moment before disappearing to the bathroom to get the first aid kit. 

When he came back, Finch had moved to sitting at the dining room table having shed his suit jacket, leaving it draped carelessly, haphazardly across the back of the chair. John straightened it, absently, as he took a seat across from Harold, gritting his teeth and moving to unbutton Harold’s shirt and push it off his shoulder. The shirt had soaked through and for a moment, John panicked, gears of his mind grinding to a full stop, thinking about how Harold could have bled out from his carelessness, before Harold placed his hand on John’s chin and forced his eyes away from the wound. 

“I haven’t had time to change my shirt, John. It’s the one I was wearing when I was shot.” 

John huffed out a breath he somehow hadn’t realized he’d been holding and suddenly, he was on the floor, his arms wrapped around Harold’s slim waist, his face pressed up against Harold’s stomach, and he was crying. He felt a twist in his gut, shame, creep through him at losing his composure so thoroughly in front of the one person who had always trusted him to be a rock, but he found that in that moment, he couldn’t. He felt Harold reach his arms to cradle John, felt him try to drop a kiss to his head, but his spine wouldn’t allow for that sort of movement, so Harold settled for squeezing his arms a little tighter, and then leveraging them under John’s armpits, lifting him up.

“John…”

John could only hiccup, refusing to meet Harold’s eye.

“John, look at me, dearest.”

John bit his lip, before glancing up at Harold, eyes skittering away quickly. Harold reached out his hands and pulled John’s chin to make him look Harold in the eye. 

“John, none of this was your fault. You have to know that. If anyone is to blame here, we all know that it was me, that I was the weak one, and that whatever happens next is due to my not trusting the Machine, and by an extension, not trusting you and Shaw to be rational. I was a fool and now, we’ve entered the endgame.”

John’s lips twisted in a grimace, the one that he wore when his coffee wasn’t right, when a number was particularly annoying, or when Harold said something against himself.

“Harold, you can’t blame yourself.”

“Why not? Everyone else does. It’s certainly not a wrong supposition – “

“Because if you start blaming yourself, then everything I know to be right in this world, is wrong. It’s upside down, and with the whole rest of the world turning inside out, and upside down, I need you to keep being a rock. I need you to keep being the rock in the storm.”

Harold let out a shaky breath.

“It’s funny because I was just thinking that about you, John. About how you’re the rock that I need to keep me going through this, this endless monotony of running and hiding and ducking and covering, and here I’ve done everything I can to push you away.” 

John starts to protest, but Harold holds a hand out.

“Oh come now, John. First of all, - “

Harold puts his hands under John’s arms, trying to lift him. John goes easily enough. He was never strong enough to deny Harold anything he wanted. He lets Harold pull him over to the couch and pull him down, until the two of them are seated next to each other, John’s head resting on Harold’s shoulder and his long, long legs drawn up, with his knees resting on Harold’s legs. Harold’s arm is around him and John remembers a different time they had sat like this, in a different apartment, John’s own.

_Harold had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his nose, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, and John’s mouth was instantly dry._

_“I know it has a lot to do with the unpredictably of humanity, but sometimes, Mr. Reese, I think some of the people whose numbers we get are purposely courting death.”_

_“C’mon Finch. Don’t say it like that.”_

_Harold replaces his glasses on the bridge and gives John a sharp glance._

_“Whatever do you mean?”_

_“Like you’ve given up on humanity. That’s my role here, remember?”_

_Harold’s face has taken on that particularly pinched form of disapproval that always makes John want to chuckle._

_“What I mean to say, John, is that that woman, Miss Delicio, had everything going well for her. A loving husband, good kids, friends. And she threw it all away for what? A little extra cash and a designer handbag.”_

_“She didn’t know she was throwing it away. Her mother was also drowning in medical bills, she probably thought she was headed the same way. If you look at it that way, she thought she was helping her mother, and eventually, her loving husband and good kids.”_

_“I suppose you’re right.”_

_John closes his eyes for a moment, the exhaustion of running around New York for three days with their number finally starting to catch up to him. He isn’t aware that he’s drifted off until he feels a slightly insistent pull on his hand._

_“John, you’re practically asleep on your feet. Come here and at least sit down for a moment. Better yet, why don’t you just go to bed?”_

_Distantly, John knows that he should just go get some shut-eye. That Harold won’t mind. But the thought of leaving Harold out here alone, when he’s clearly still wound-up and annoyed feels wrong under John’s skin, like a splinter stuck just beneath the skin. Something he can’t get rid of. So, he does the next best thing. He curls up on the couch, his head on Harold’s shoulder, his long, long legs curled up next to him with his knees effectively pinning Harold to the couch._

_“Will you stay, Harold?”_

_“Personally, I think you’d be much happier curled up this way in bed, John, but if it makes you happy, then yes. I will stay.”_

_John turns his head slightly and leaves a light, barely there kiss to Harold’s neck._

_“’M happy wherever you are.”_

_Sleep starts to tug insistently at his brain, but not before he feels an arm come around as a blanket is dragged over his legs._

_“And I feel much the same about you.”_

_John had woken the next morning to find his head cradled in Harold’s lap, presumably having repositioned himself sometime in the night, Harold’s glasses sitting only partially folded on the table in front of him. He can feel the soft breathing of the man in question, indicating that he’s still asleep, and John burns. He was such a mess last night and Harold had been kind and sweet. He starts to pull away, but the hand that’s resting on his tightens and Harold sniffs for a moment before speaking, his voice soft and scratchy from sleep._

_“Where’re you going, John?”_

_“I just…I mean…”_

_“John, I’ve never been very good with people. Computers, books, I suppose in a way, words, though not if I have to direct them at people, so this is going to come out clumsy and foolish, and I’m sorry that you have to hear this. You don’t…this wasn’t….shit…”_

_John snorts, he can feel the laughter getting ready to bubble through his whole body._

_“Thanks for that Harold.”_

_John starts to rise and he hears a muttered –fuck- before there’s a pair of soft lips on his, a surprised mmm making its way through his lips before he starts kissing back and then all too quickly the feeling is gone._

_“John, you said last night, right before you fell asleep –“_

_“That I was happy wherever you are. I meant every word of that Harold.”_

_“Good. Because cards on the table, I love you, John, and I would go anywhere and give you anything you wanted, if it would make you happy.”_

John gets up off the couch, Harold murmuring a protest at the loss of warmth. He holds out his hand for Harold to take.

“Come on, Harold. If we only get one night together before we have to become these new people, we’re sure as hell not spending it curled up on this couch, and definitely not with me falling asleep on your shot-up shoulder.” 

Harold’s lips curl a little.

“You know Harold, for someone who doesn’t like guns, you’re starting to get more familiar with them.”

“If by more familiar, you mean the shooting end, then yes, John. Unfortunately, you’re right.”

John’s heart twists at that and he has a momentary vision of Harold stepping wrong as bullets go flying through the room, causing him to pull the shorter man closer to him and squeeze.

“John? John?”

Harold pushes an arm through the vise John has made with his arms.

“For Heaven’s sake, John, I’m fine. Stop it.”

John shakes his head once and pulls Harold towards the bedroom. There are so many better ideas that he has reverberating in his skull and he’d loved to be pulling Harold into one of those fantasies, but if this is their last night together before they become Whistler and Riley, he doesn’t really care how he gets it, as long as they’re together.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've always felt like there's something missing between the end of S3 and start of S4 in terms of character interactions. Like we needed a little bit more character building, I guess? I'm not sure. The first time I watched the show through I wanted another scene, the second time I watched just that episode, I wanted another scene, and now rewatching it with my roommate, I still want another scene.  
> SO I WROTE IT MY DAMN SELF.
> 
> Also, in my canon, Reese and Finch are married. (My roommate is onboard with this idea, especially since we're a little over halfway through S4)
> 
> Basically what's happening is, my roommate has not seen Person of Interest. I've seen it all. Guess who's bingeing their way through it?!  
> Not us. No. We would never.


End file.
